Sania-Bhupathi crash, Paes surges ahead

India's Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi made an early exit from the mixed doubles event at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships here Saturday while their compatriot Leander Paes marched into the men's doubles third round with Radek Stepanek.

All the drama surrounding the composition of the Indian tennis team for the Olympics seemed to have weighed down Bhupathi and Sania as they were dumped by Paul Hanley and Alla Kurdryavtseva in the second round.

The fifth seeded Indian pair hardly put up a fight against the unseeded Australian-Russian combine losing 3-6, 1-6 in 50 minutes. Bhupathi and Sania made four unforced errors and failed to get even a single break point opportunity.

In the first set, the Indian pair hit two double faults and even though they had more winners, a single break point for Hanley and Kurdryavtseva team was enough to wrap up the set. Sania-Bhupathi failed to recover from there on.

Paes, a day after confirming to compete in the Olympics, got together with Stepanek to dispatch Israel's Andy Ram and Jonathan Elrich 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (5). The fourth seeds put 74 % of their first serves in and converted four of their 12 break points.